Jing'an district has the best public toilets in the city, followed by Pudong New Area and Songjiang district, according to the results of a survey released Thursday.

Overall public satisfaction with toilets across the city was pegged at 82.53 points out of a possible 100 for the first half of this year, slightly down on the 84.98 points for the second half of 2012, according to officials from the Shanghai Municipal Afforestation and City Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Administration, which commissioned the survey.

"The drop in score is partly due to a change in the research method," Zhou Bing, division head of the administration's publicity department, said at a press conference held Thursday to announce the results of the survey.

"This year we sent surveys to users, whereas in previous years the score was based on evaluations by the toilet operators themselves," Zhou said.

Among the 400 public toilets sampled, 135 or 33.8 percent, were judged as being "green,"  meaning the public was generally satisfied with them.

The survey covered 4,000 people as part of a wider investigation into public sanitation.

At 84.87 points, Jing'an district scored the highest of the 17 areas of the city covered by the survey. Chongming county, Qingpu district and Baoshan district scored the lowest.

Altogether, seven public toilets across the city were ranked as being in the "red zone," meaning there were serious concerns in their standards.

Problems with these toilets included old facilities, bad sanitation, bad odors in the toilets due to infrequent cleaning, and an insufficient number of stalls in the toilets.

"The survey is less about the scores each district or toilet got, but more about identifying how we can better serve residents and tourists," Lu Jianping, the administration's deputy director, said.

The administration will urge local toilet management agencies to do better.

Lu also said the public and the government should all do their bit to maintain a good environment in all public places.

The survey results showed that the public thought Huangpu, Jing'an and Zhabei districts were the top three in terms of street cleanliness.

"Every day, our sanitation workers clear 1,800 tons of rubbish from the city's streets, 60 percent of which is non-commercial.

In addition, 6 tons of rubbish per day comes from the elevated roads," said Lu.